It’s time to step into the cel-shaded boots of a vault hunter in the latest iteration of Gearbox’s looter-shooter franchise, Borderlands 4.
Over-the-top characters, irreverent humour and more weapons than you can possibly imagine are all staples of the Borderlands games. This fourth outing seems eerily similar.
Borderlands 4 is a direct continuation of the last game, which saw Pandora’s moon teleported away to KaIros, the location in this new game. The moon’s arrival shattered the cloak that hid the planet, inviting vault hunters to plunder the planet’s treasure. As well as hunting for the planet’s vault, players also find themselves enlisted in a rebellion against the planet’s immortal dictator, the Timekeeper and his legion of robots.
Players can choose to play as Vault Hunters Rafa the Exo-Soldier, Harlowe the Gravitar, Amon the Forgeknight, and Vex the Siren. Once again, the peculiar single-wheeled robot, Claptrap, serves as players’ guide early in the game, with other returning characters including Lilith and Amara, as well as Moxxi and Marcus Kincad.
The plot is not the game’s strong point, however, for me, it’s the most compelling entry in the series in years.
The game world forgoes loading screens, giving players a seamless environment to explore. The game can be played solo or with up to two other players from any supported gaming platform.
The lack of loading screens is even more impressive given the size of the huge map. The game will certainly keep you busy. As well as the main mission, there are optional side quests and contracts. The side quests are entertaining adventures in their own right and very difficult to overlook. It’s easy to get sidetracked for hours doing nothing but exploring, taking contracts, doing side quests and uncovering secrets that are scattered about the game world.
The vast map offers fast travel options between settlements, but there’s also a novel balloon system that allows players to propel themselves across vast distances. Early on in the game, players obtain a jet pack for traversing between gaps and, a little later, a hover bike to get around the map faster than walking.
The variety of enemies is a bit small, with the antagonists getting a bit samey after a while. New opponents get introduced as you progress, but not before the usual suspects, with their minor variants, get a bit old.
In performance mode, the game runs well on PlayStation 5, but even with a PlayStation 5 Pro, the quality mode struggles. On my desktop PC (with an RTX 4090), the game runs smoothly in 4K. Whilst the game ran on the OG ROG Ally handheld PC (the upgraded Xbox version due later this month), it required compromises that some may find acceptable, but I did not. This is the reason for the tardy review, as I had intended to do the review on the Ally while travelling overseas on a family holiday.
It is clearly a graphically demanding game, but it is all on the screen for players to enjoy. Borderlands 4 keeps the cell-shaded visual style that’s synonymous with the franchise, but this time it looks so much better. The vast vistas of Kalros really show off the effort put into preserving the look of the other games, whilst exploiting the power of the Unreal Engine 5.
Borderlands 4 is, arguably, more of the same. But this time it’s packaged up better than ever before. The game offers players more freedom to play the way they want within an open-world environment that looks fantastic. The frantic gunplay, cheesy humour, and so much loot are all but guaranteed to put a smile on your face.
Rating: Very Good